Pitching a Documentary

I have spent some of my time over the past couple of weeks putting together a proposal for a documentary, which my producing partner and I have pitched to a group called The Pitch Room. The Pitch Room is a documentary project for HBO. In a sense it is the blueprint for a “reality show,” but instead of competing to see who can eat the most urinal puck or be hung from their hair while running in place the longest, the competition is to successfully pitch a documentary or long-form broadcast news story.

We’ll find out next week if we’re heading down to pitch the documentary in person. From conversations we’ve had with them, it doesn’t seem like too unlikely a prospect, though it is not a certainty. If we do, our song and dance will be filmed and that material will be presented to HBO who will have two months to decide whether or not they’ll fund the pilot in its entirety (and more perhaps). If they do pick it up (and considering the caliber of the people involved and HBO’s relative bravery in its programming choices, I wouldn’t be altogether surprised they did) our documentary would be funded as part of the pilot. If ours winds up being one of the two winning projects out of six or eight in competition for that episode, that is.

Unfortunately, I can’t say any more about the story we’re pitching. That’s not out of some desire not to tip off the competition (as if) but because of certain elements of the story itself, which will become clear once the thing is done and we can talk about it. For the same reason, I have to forebear from talking about my producing partner.